INSIDE THE JAGUAR DAIMLER HERITAGE TRUST

Vehicle Collections Manager Neil Campbell updates us on the JDHT workshop.

This month we are dedicating our slot in Classic Jaguar to our workshop activities. Our event calendar is currently bursting and it’s been a very busy time. Our vehicle collection is a living active one, and we aim to keep at least 70% of our road legal vehicles in active service. I say ‘road legal’ because as well as ‘normal’ vehicles we have the privilege to look after several concept cars and prototypes which for a variety of reasons can’t be used on the road.

A large proportion of our collection are classed as historic vehicles and in the UK are exempted from annual testing, however we choose to have an independent set of eyes to look over them at least once a year in the form of an MoT test. We have sent a variety of cars for test recently from ERB our 1938 SS100 through to our 2014 Team Sky F-type, which was fresh out of long term storage and had never seen an MoT ramp until this year.

Since then we have used the Team Sky car extensively – it even attended a cycling themed event at Bicester Heritage not long after passing the test. Preparing cars for demonstrations at events is a big part of our remit, and we are lucky enough to have supported some major ones already. First up was a trip to Spain and then Monte Carlo in April. This was to support possibly the last ever Internal Combustion Engine car launch for Jaguar - the special edition F-TYPE 75 and F-TYPE R 75.

These cars were designed to celebrate both the final Model Year of the F-TYPE and the 75th anniversary of Jaguar Sports cars, so it was unsurprising that we were asked to bring along our E-Type 77 RW and XK120 NUB 120 to help support. Our technician Jock Howe did the first stint in Spain, driving down past Barcelona in our prototype 2017 F-PACE, VA66 LSX.

We chose the F-PACE as it is lefthand drive and had only covered 552 miles in six years - so it needed a run. It passed its first MoT with no advisories and was pressed into use, performing admirably. After the stint in Spain with the motoring journalists, the event packed up and relocated to the fabulous Maybourne Riviera Hotel on the hills overlooking Monte Carlo. Jock drove home in the F-PACE and the reigns were handed to me to support the French / Monaco leg, which was designed to demonstrate the new F-TYPE models to the lifestyle media.

We had offered to give passenger rides in both 77 RW and NUB 120 for selected guests. We assumed that the motoring journalists in Spain would be more interested in this hence our technician Jock covering that one. In fact the reverse was true, and I took quite a few excited ‘influencers’ out from the Maybourne Rivieria up the snaking switchback D53 road to La Turbie, and then back to the hotel.

NUB 120 in particular thrived on the mountain roads – unsurprisingly given its Coupe Des Alpes past. It was a great honour for the JDHT to be present at such an historic event as Jaguar prepares for a new electrified future. On that note, I was pleased that JLR have released some tantalising details of the new model range that awaits. We get asked repeatedly about how new Jaguar will look, but thankfully we at the JDHT know nothing at all apart from what has been officially released.

It’s great that everyone is so interested about the future plans of Jaguar but as we don’t know any details please stop asking us!

I know the stated starting price point of circa £100,000 has raised some eyebrows but let’s not forget that a fully loaded Daimler Super 8 would have cost north of £80,000 back in 2008, so I guess the price shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

Coventry Motofest is a big part of our calendar and - conflict of interest time – an event I co-founded over ten years ago. The JDHT have always supported Motofest and this year is no exception. Although the event hasn’t taken place yet at time of writing, we have been busy preparing the cars for display. Initially we intended to run the 1988 Le Mans winning

Jaguar XJR-9, so pulled it out of the main museum in order to prep it.

We have demonstrated XJR-9 at a couple of events already including the Gaydon Gathering and the JEC Tracksport event at Castle Combe. The latter caused quite a stir especially as we had told everyone, including our Managing Director Matthew Davies, that our long nosed D-type 393 RW was going. A last-minute change of plan saw us load the 9 instead so Jock our technician could get a few more laps in behind the wheel. To say there were a few surprised and delighted people present when the trailer door was opened the following morning would be somewhat of an understatement.

The reason the XJR-9 can’t make Coventry Motofest this year is a pretty good one – 2023 is the centenary year of the Le Mans 24hr race and the JDHT have been invited to join the celebrations. We will be running the car in their previous winners parade lap before the car is placed into their museum for a month. It may even get another outing for a parade lap at Le Mans Classic too but that is still to be arranged.

To replace the XJR-9 at Motofest we pulled the XJR-5 out of the museum with the idea of getting it working again. As far as we can tell last time it was demonstrated was back in 2015 and since then it has resided in the Jaguar Racing Gallery in the main British Motor Museum building. Our technician Jock had it running within an hour or two and all seemed well. Ish. One of the banks on the V12 was sounding decidedly ‘fluffy’ and the exhaust system told its own story. One side was too hot to touch and had that delightful bluing that stainless exhausts develop, the other side was cool enough to touch without burning your hand – we don’t recommend touching hot exhausts by the way!

It was clearly a fuel delivery problem, but before we stripped any carburettors we decided to swap them around to see if the problem would follow any of them across the engine. On removing the first one Jock discovered aluminium swarf blocking both the carburettor at its internal filter, as well as in the fuel rail itself. Could this be the issue?

All the fuel lines and carburettors were inspected and quite a worrying amount of swarf was recovered.

The swarf was perplexing as it was located after the fuel filters and clear of any moving parts – where on earth could it have come from? Our best guess so far is that it could be remnants of tapping a feed into the aluminium part that takes the main feed from the fuel tanks and splits it to either bank. It would be inaccurate to describe it as a T piece splitter as it isn’t a T shape, but it performs the same duty. It seems almost unbelievable that anyone tapping a thread into aluminium would leave the swarf in the system instead of clearing it out though.

We will be monitoring it to see if any more swarf appears but so far it hasn’t. It was all very odd indeed, but more on the XJR-5 another time – the news doesn’t get any better either… In other news we have spent some money »

updating our Jaguar Gallery located at the Coventry Transport Museum. Unfortunately since lockdown the gallery had started to look a little shabby – the roof had leaked onto our display boards and the AV equipment was out of date and kept breaking down.

The JDHT became officially homeless when the museum at Browns Lane was demolished so a considerable sum of money was spent designing and delivering the Coventry Transport Museum gallery, which was for a time, the only place where the JDHT collection vehicles could be seen by the public. That was back in 2013, so it was due for a revamp. Around 40% of the LED lighting had stopped working and most of the electronic ‘explainers’ in front of the vehicles were also broken.

The prominent TV in the Future Jaguar area had stopped working altogether and rather than adding to the display, was now blocking it. A new TV was fitted in its place so the C-X75 story could be told again. The future of Jaguar display was now out of date and as we don’t know what the future cars might be like, we opted to remove the ‘Future’ text and replace with new graphics in black which mirror our newly designed website. Now the gallery is looking smart again I encourage you all to visit if you’re in the area. Next step is to change some of the cars on display, but that’s for another time.